What's More Romantic than a Destination Wedding?

Vanguard Professional William Innes is an award-winning wedding photographer, living in Los Angeles, CA. He is currently a member of Professional Photographers of America (PPA) and Wedding & Portrait Photographers International (WPPI). William will be conducting a photo walk called 'Engaging Engagement Sessions' at WPPI this year. JOIN HIM!

Think of awesome possible locations for a honeymoon – Hawaii, Mexico, the Caribbean or maybe Europe. Ironically that’s where most destination weddings take place. That’s what makes them so awesome – the romantic locations!

Here are some of the benefits of shooting destination weddings:

As the old real estate saying goes; “location, location, location”. You the photographer get to visit exotic locations and maybe get to stay a little longer for a vacation. Bring your spouse and make it your own little romantic getaway.

More of it. I always arrive a day early and stay a little late. This extra time enables me to spend more time with the Bride and Groom by attending the rehearsal dinner and/or going to the morning after brunch celebration. Destination weddings tend to have fewer guests and this translates into more time with the bride and groom on the wedding day to capture the Romanic images.

Portfolio material. Odds are you shoot many of your weddings at the same locations in your local market. By photographing a destination wedding you will be able to add new and fresh material to your portfolio and website. Maybe you could even create a new gallery on your website just for out of town weddings.

The images in this blog post are from a destination wedding I photographed in Cabo San Lucas last month. It was a fabulous wedding with the bride (a local wedding planner) wearing a black custom made wedding dress. There were only 22 guests, made up of close friends and family. The bride and groom allotted me 2 hours just for their romantic images. It was great wandering around the resort finding outstanding locations to shoot everywhere we looked.

If you decide to hit the road and photograph in some far away distant land, be sure to take your time and really think about what gear to bring. You will definitely have to downsize, so only bring what is absolutely necessary. I brought two bodies, 5 lenses and three flashes and it all fit nicely in my Heralder 51T. The bag easily fits on the airplane to Mexico.

Bon Voyage!

William Innes is a Los Angeles Wedding Photographer and a Panasonic Luminary. Be sure to visit his website to see more of his work.